'Sun smart' albino kangaroo spotted hanging out near Murray River
What's thought to be a rare albino kangaroo has been spotted peering over a fence at the Murray River in South Australia.
Rosemary Faehrmann and her husband were driving near the Big Bend, near Swan Reach, about 175km east of Adelaide, when they noticed a white kangaroo hopping along next to the road.
Mrs Faehrmann also posted the image on her houseboat firm's Facebook page assuring users the rare roo is real. Photo: Riverglen Marina Houseboat Hire
"I jumped out of the car with the camera and the roo stopped at the same time and looked back at us to see if we were chasing it I think," Ms Faehrmann told ABC News.
Ms Faehrmann posted the image to Facebook on February 8 where it has reached over 8,000 likes and been shared more than 7,500 times.
"Doesn't look real does it?," she wrote. "But let me assure you that it was a real live albino kangaroo on the side of the road."
Albino animals usually have a shorter life-span because their colour makes them more vulnerable in the wild. Photo: Facebook/ Memot Heng Heng
Facebook users are going crazy over the photo with some suggesting his age means he must be "sun smart".
"Amazing this beauty has lived against the odds, he looks of a good age! He must be very sun smart," one woman wrote.
"One white boomer looking for the other five since Xmas," another said.
One user, Pattiann O'Rourke, posted an image claiming her daughter snapped a picture of a rare roo in flight.
"Our daughter was working out at West Wyalong during harvest in Dec and took this great pic of an albino roo in flight," the post read.
This white roo in flight was captured in December in West Wyalong during harvest. Photo: Pattiann O'Rourke
An albino kangaroo spotted at Boardertown Wildlife Park. Photo: Facebook
The South Australian Tourism Commission have have also shared the rare photo on their pages in South Australia, the UK, Germany and India which has reached out to over a million people.
Ms Faehrmann said there are quite a few around in wildlife parks, Bordertown, Cudlee Creek, where they are protected by being kept in captivity, so seeing them in the wild is very unusual.
But the Bordertown Wildlife Park, which has a number of not-so-rare white kangaroos, said it was difficult to know just how rare albino kangaroos were.
"Apart from the one we caught here in the early 1970s, this is the only other one I've heard of," committee chair Adrian Packer told AAP on Thursday.
"Bar catching it and getting up really close to see if its eyes are red, it's hard to say."
The light skin and fur of the albino roo makes them vulnerable to skin cancer, while they are often burdened with vision and hearing defects that can make it difficult to fight off predators, according to the ABC.
Albino animals usually have a shorter life-span as their easy-to-spot appearance makes them vulnerable.
These rare roo's can easily be mistaken for whites which are a genetic strain of the western gray.
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